Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) is an example of one remote sensing technology that may be utilized to acquire information on an environment. The acquired information may include the distances to, or other properties of, objects in the environment. A LIDAR device may use laser light in a range of wavelengths/frequencies, e.g., ultraviolet, visible, or infrared, to illuminate and acquire information on a variety of different types of objects, such as metallic and non-metallic items, geological formations, and even atmospheric elements.
In operation, a LIDAR device may be configured to illuminate a surrounding environment with light, detect light reflected off of objects within the environment, and determine object information based on the reflected light. In some environments, objects may be far away from the LIDAR device, such that the light travels a relatively long distance (both from the LIDAR to the object, and from the object back to the LIDAR). Consequently, the light travels for a relatively long period of time before returning to the LIDAR device. Because the light travels a long distance, and for a long period of time, the reflected light is often significantly attenuated by the time it returns to the LIDAR device. That is, the reflected light signal becomes increasingly weaker as the return time of the light increases. Thus, a received signal corresponding to a near object may be many times stronger than a signal corresponding to a far object
In some arrangements, in an attempt to improve the ability to detect far-away objects, the sensitivity of a LIDAR signal receiver can be increased. However, as the sensitivity of the signal receiver is increased, it can become more difficult to accurately detect near objects. As a result, the dynamic range of the signal receiver may be negatively affected. Because the distance of objects in an environment may differ dramatically, however, such a decreased dynamic range of the signal receiver is undesirable.